


Open hand or closed fist (would be fine).

by ariadnes_string



Category: The Honourable Woman
Genre: Captivity, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 19:22:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3145721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes_string/pseuds/ariadnes_string
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a moment, Atika gives Nessa her body back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open hand or closed fist (would be fine).

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Venturous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venturous/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this, Venturous! I wanted to write it for you for Yuletide, but ran out of time.  
> Warning: reference to canon rape.  
> Title from Hozier's "Cherry Wine."

Somehow, Atika had procured a jar of oil she said would help with stretch marks. The liquid was colorless, and occupied a jar that had clearly started life with a different purpose; it smelled of herbs or unguents Nessa could not identify. When she asked Atika what was in it, Atika only shrugged and said, “It is what they use here.” 

In their present circumstances, it was an unbelievable luxury. Still, it made Nessa think of the expensive, fragrant creams she surely would have bought in London, had she fallen pregnant there; beautiful jars in elaborate boxes with all their ingredients listed on the side. Though, of course, if she’d been at home, she never would have let things get this far.

Nessa could’ve have applied the oil herself, but somehow it seemed Atika’s job. Atika had lost none of her energy or decisiveness in captivity, whereas Nessa felt torpid, weighed down by more than just pregnancy. How, she often wondered, could days be so empty, and yet so filled with huge, irrevocable events? When Atika gestured, she pulled up her top and let Atika smooth the stuff across the domed skin above her pelvis, where the baby was stretching everything tight. 

“It will be a boy,” Atika said.

“How do you know?”

“The shape. Boys stick out.” She mimed Nessa’s jutting bump. “Girls wrap around. Or so they say.”

The oil was the same temperature as the day, but Atika’s fingers were cool. Nessa herself was always hot. Pregnancy produces more blood—hadn’t she read that somewhere, or heard Rachel complain about it? It was how she felt, at any rate—too much blood coursing through her, her body busy even when she kept as still as possible.

Atika tugged at the elastic of Nessa’s trousers, and she obediently pulled them down so that Atika could get at the white lines already scoring her hips. 

“There’s no point,” she said, suddenly plunged into mourning for the body she had lost, its pristine flesh. “I’m ruined.”

“Shhh,” Atika murmured, less a comfort than a rebuke to Nessa’s despair.

Sometimes Nessa hated the creature growing inside her. It seemed as cruel as the man who’d put it there, intent on her destruction. She could feel no intimacy with it; on the contrary, it seemed to move farther away from her every day, taking parts of her with it. Then she would remember that its life was Atika’s life. She would think of their strange, shared, hidden existence, and all the intensity of connection she could not feel for her future child would rush in upon her.

Thinking of this, she put her hand on Atika’s head, bent, and, as always, intent on her task. Atika looked up at her, not smiling, but coming as close as she ever did. 

Atika straightened, re-settling Nessa's waistband. “Here?” she asked, her hands touching the sides of her own breasts.

Nessa hesitated, not sure if she was ready for that degree of exposure. Then, she nodded, there was no privacy here, after all, and pulled her top over her head. Her own bra no longer fit, and their captors had not supplied new ones, so her breasts hung free, heavy, blue-veined, and unfamiliar. It wasn’t comfortable. For the first few months, they had hurt desperately, but now they were just sensitive to any touch, even the worn fabric of her tunic sometimes felt like too much. 

Atika looked at her with what Nessa thought might be sympathy, and poured more oil onto her hand. When she touched Nessa’s skin, though, high on her breast, where the marks began, Nessa almost gasped. Her nipples instantly tightened, and all that excess of blood seemed to gather and pulse between her legs. 

“Oh,” she breathed, her face heating with both excitement and embarrassment.

Atika looked at her. Nessa thought she might be about to pull away, and both hoped and feared she would. But Atika just tilted her head, assessing. Then, in one seamless movement, she lifted herself on tiptoe, leaned over the swell of Nessa’s belly, and, with one hand on Nessa’s shoulder to steady herself, kissed her. 

They held to the surface for a long time, dry lips brushing, achingly sweet. Then greed overcame Nessa, and she opened she mouth against Atika’s, inviting her in. Atika handled her breasts less gently now, teasing her nipples, the sensation so intense Nessa could feel a moan rising in her throat.

But they were silent, moving against each other with as little noise as possible. Who knew who was listening, who was right outside the door? Somehow, they had maneuvered themselves so that Nessa’s back was now against a wall. It was a good thing, too; she thought she might have fallen, otherwise.

“Is this okay?” Atika whispered, her lips against Nessa’s ear. Her hand had slipped beneath Nessa’s waistband again.

Nessa was puzzled for a moment. Of course it was okay, couldn’t Atika tell that from her response to her kisses? Then, she remembered. Remembered her numbness after the rape, Atika’s fury.

But this was different. Her body sang now, it urged her on. Atika had given that back to her, had somehow given her own body back to her, for this long, stolen moment. In answer to her question, she covered Atika’s hand with her own, and moved it lower.

She was so wet it was almost embarrassing, swollen, ready. Atika explored for just a moment, and then, as if sensing Nessa’s desperation, increased the pressure, let Nessa buck and push against her strength.

Nessa came biting Atika’s shoulder to keep from crying out.

Afterwards, they sat quietly before their narrow view of the street, Nessa with her legs crossed, her hands clasped in her lap, Atika with her knees drawn up, her arms around them.

Nessa stole a glance at her profile. She was so beautiful, Atika, delicate, and sharp as flint. Even now, as close to repose as she ever got, there was a fierceness to her, though whether is was wildness, or a discipline that passed all understanding, Nessa didn’t know.

“My heart,” she said. “My world.”

Atika turned to her, her face unreadable. “You shouldn’t talk like that.” She stood abruptly, and busied herself with something in the room. 

Nessa gazed into the sunlight beyond the shutters, feeling the life stir within her.


End file.
